Fact check: How many non-criminal immigrants were deported by ICE in 2024?

1. How the headline numbers diverge — deportations versus detention snapshots

ICE’s headline for fiscal year 2024 reports over 271,000 to 300,000 removals depending on the government file cited, but these removal totals do not include a consistent, public breakdown by criminal conviction status across the fiscal year, which makes a straightforward count of non‑criminal deportees impossible from ICE’s public summary alone ^{[2] [1]}. Independent organizations and press outlets therefore rely on alternate datasets — detention population snapshots, removal files with limited fields, and third‑party aggregations — producing different estimates of the non‑criminal share. The practical effect is that removal totals and detention snapshots are being conflated in public discussion despite measuring different moments and populations ^{[1] [4]}.

2. Cato’s estimate that two‑thirds lacked convictions — method and limits

The Cato Institute’s June 2025 analysis reported 65 percent of people taken by ICE had no convictions, with 93 percent having no violent convictions, and presented this as evidence that many deported individuals were non‑criminals ^[3]. That figure is drawn from specific enforcement datasets and includes individuals encountered by ICE across settings; however, it depends on how “conviction” is operationalized and on whether some people had pending charges or out‑of‑state/missing criminal records. Cato’s number is high and attention‑grabbing, but it should be read alongside ICE’s own inability to produce a precise, comparable nationwide conviction breakdown in its public removals summary ^[1].

3. Media snapshots show detention without convictions rising fast

News reports from mid‑2025 show detention populations with no criminal convictions surged, with NPR reporting around 30,000 people in detention without criminal records in a recent month, and other media citing ICE data showing 43,755 of 59,762 detained had never been convicted as of late September 2025 ^{[6] [4]}. These detention snapshots reflect the composition of people held at particular points in time, not the full set of removals over fiscal year 2024, yet they indicate a trend: the pool of people ICE detains increasingly includes non‑convicted individuals, which influences removal outcomes because many detainees proceed to removal without criminal convictions being established ^{[6] [4]}.

4. Government removals files show totals but omit conviction breakdowns

A December 2024 government report confirmed ICE removals rose to a 10‑year high, citing roughly 271,000 removals and noting most were first arrested by CBP ^[2]. That official reporting confirms scale but does not supply a clear "non‑criminal" count, leaving room for interpretation and third‑party reconstructions. The Deportation Data Project and related updates recommend using their compiled removals files but caution that the datasets require careful parsing and do not always include a reliable field for conviction status, which explains persistent uncertainty over an exact number of non‑criminal deportations ^{[7] [5]}.

5. Independent datasets converge on "significant share" but not a single total

Multiple independent datasets and analyses converge on the assessment that a significant share — often characterized as half, two‑thirds, or greater — of detained or processed individuals lacked criminal convictions, but they stop short of producing a single validated national count of non‑criminal removals in 2024 ^{[3] [5] [4]}. Differences stem from timeframes, whether the data capture ICE arrests versus CBP removals, and how non‑criminal status is verified. The practical conclusion is that non‑criminals constituted a substantial portion of ICE’s enforcement footprint, but precise tallying requires harmonized data ICE has not published ^{[3] [5]}.

6. What’s missing and why the debate persists

The core omission preventing a definitive answer is a standardized, public removals file that includes verified criminal conviction status, charging details, and date‑of‑arrest agency for every removal in fiscal year 2024; absent that, analysts use proxies like detention snapshots, partial removal records, or cross‑agency arrest origin fields ^{[1] [7]}. This opaque reporting produces fertile ground for competing narratives — advocacy groups emphasize high non‑convicted shares to argue for policy change, while officials highlight overall removals and border apprehension contributions to defend enforcement — and both narratives rest on partial datasets, which perpetuates disagreement ^{[3] [2]}.

7. Bottom line for readers: a clear number is not available, but the trend is unmistakable

No single, authoritative published number exists in the provided datasets that states exactly how many non‑criminal immigrants ICE deported in 2024; official removal totals are available, and multiple independent analyses and detention snapshots consistently show a substantial and rising proportion of detainees and likely removals lacked criminal convictions, implying tens of thousands — potentially a majority of detained populations at points — were non‑criminals ^{[2] [3] [4]}. Policymakers and the public seeking precision should press for a reconciled removals file that includes conviction status to resolve the dispute definitively ^[7].